I bring good news for those of us who don't want to spend $50 on all the games included with Orange Box: Valve is planning on releasing the games as separate titles. As Warren Jenson, CFO and executive VP of Electronic Arts (who owns Valve) so eloquently put it, "We are unbundling Orange Box and releasing separate PC SKUs". The separate SKUs are likely to arrive before March 31st, when the fiscal year ends. Pricing, availability, and release date are not clear at this point. It is also unclear whether or not the Orange Box will continue to be sold as a package, or if the Orange Box will only be sold as a bunch of split-up titles.Source: 1Up

by: Elijah86Umm... Last I had heard EA does not "own" Valve. But they merely have a contract for selling games.

Also, I'm not completely certain of all the ends and out of the contract between Valve and EA, but I think you're putting the contract for selling games to lightly. Normally, when a publisher such as EA publishes a game(s) such as the Orange Box, EA is the one forwarding the money to the developer to finish the product in a timely manner. That money is like a loan, and EA will look over the project to make sure that EA is getting there moneys worth out of the game(s).

Like I said, I'm not completely sure about the contract between EA and Valve, but that's normally how it goes. Similar to the merger between Mythic and EA.

by: DanielF50This isnt good news, I bought all 5 games for £25 (the orange box), thats £5 a game! normally PC games in the UK cost over £30 for 1.

I also sold hl2 and ep1 to a friend, for £10, as I already had them (using the gift thingies)

So all in all it came to £15 for 5 games :| Why cant people accept VALVe are cheaper than most companys when it comes to games...

Daniel

Valve in my opinion isn't actually cheaper than other companys. Half-Life 2 was an old game when it was released with the Orange Box. However, when Half Life 2 was intially released it was a full priced game. I bought the collectors edition of it for 20$ extra. The episodes are small versions of the game, hence the name episodes. They are priced where the need to be. Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer only game, and is also priced where it needs to be. Same goes for Portal, it's not that long of a game and it's only single player. Story is pretty good also. Half-Life was also a full priced game when I bought. Still have the original box for it with the Eb Games sticker on it. The point is, you can't price OLD games at FULL price unless they are NEW.

...what? I was under the impression that the founders, Gabe Newell and Doug Lombardi are the "owners" of Valve Corporation...

Elecetronic Arts is the distributor of the retail versions of Valve's games. Period. They might get a small cut of the profits, but that's it.

As for splitting the Orange Box up, the cost of each game seperately will likely be more than the total for the Orange Box... I think the cost of the Orange Box is great, considering many companies would likely have charged close to $50 for EACH game seperately.

whos not happy with spending fifty bucks on a bundle of good playable quality games?
imho theres no reason to split these titles up. all this will do is isolate and sell more of one title over the rest and people who dont buy the lot will miss out on some good gaming.

by: qwerty_leshwhos not happy with spending fifty bucks on a bundle of good playable quality games?
imho theres no reason to split these titles up. all this will do is isolate and sell more of one title over the rest and people who dont buy the lot will miss out on some good gaming.

I think there is. I bought the Orange Box for my PC, but I want to play TF2 on my PS3. However, I don't want to buy the Orange Box just to play TF2!

by: RavenasValve in my opinion isn't actually cheaper than other companys. Half-Life 2 was an old game when it was released with the Orange Box. However, when Half Life 2 was intially released it was a full priced game. I bought the collectors edition of it for 20$ extra. The episodes are small versions of the game, hence the name episodes. They are priced where the need to be. Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer only game, and is also priced where it needs to be. Same goes for Portal, it's not that long of a game and it's only single player. Story is pretty good also. Half-Life was also a full priced game when I bought. Still have the original box for it with the Eb Games sticker on it. The point is, you can't price OLD games at FULL price unless they are NEW.

Valve prices their games the same as any other developer.

agreed i spent 70 bucks for the HL2 CE black box with T-Shirt.

As for splitting it fine by me, the portal demo bores me, and i didnt enjoy TFC and im sure i wont like TF2. I do like Half Life, Half Life 2, Episode 1 and Episode 2. I borrowed a steam account from a friend who bought orange box so i could play EP2, I was waiting for the split to buy it for my own account.

The Orange Box has an extremely great value placed on it, but when people already have 2-3 games that are included in that package, there's no reason to buy it just to get the extra remaining games. I think this is a smart idea, but I do hope they keep the Orange Box bundled up as it is.